Lagos: Ambode overwhelms opponents in style

Akinwunmi Ambode, a former accountant-general of Lagos, has won Lagos state governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which began at the Onikan stadium in Ikoyi on Thursday and ended on Friday.

Ambode polled 3,735 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Obafemi Hamzat, the current commissioner for works, who polled 1,201 votes.

Ganiyu Solomon, a serving senator, placed third with a distant 272 votes.

Adeyemi Ikuforiji, speaker of the Lagos state house of assembly, finished in fourth place behind Solomon, with 182 votes.

Olasupo Shasore, the man believed to be his rival ahead of the election, ended in fifth place after polling only 121 votes. The former attorney-general of the state had the backing of outgoing Governor Babatunde Fashola.

Lanre Ope, one of the candidates, has congratulated Ambode.

More than 3,000 delegates from the 20 local government areas of the state took part in the election, supervised by Peter Obada, a former deputy governor of Edo state.

There was tension in the state a few days to the election, as other aspirants excluding, Ambode called for a suspension of the indirect delegate primaries, which the party eventually used.

The aspirants alleged that the indirect primaries could lead to agitation and litigation and may prevent the party from presenting a valid candidate for the governorship election.

“Our party leadership should immediately review the scheduled indirect primaries scheduled for December 4, 2014 with a view to suspending it,” the aspirants said in a communique issued on Tuesday.

“A special consideration to conduct direct primaries rather than the indirect delegate-based primaries should be noted. We need to be gravely concerned about the recently-released guidelines for the upcoming APC primaries and the legality of the indirect primaries as it relates to the INEC regulations 2014, the electoral act 2010 and the constitution of our party.

“The party should commence consensus building exercise amongst all aspirants in order to effect a smooth affirmation of candidates.”

But Henry Ajomale, the chairman of APC in the state, said the party decided against the direct system of primaries because “it would be too cumbersome”.

Addressing reporters before the commencement of the election, Ajomale promised that everything possible would be done to ensure justice for all the candidates.

Born on June 14, 1964, Ambode graduated from the University of Lagos with a degree in accounting.

As far back as May, TheCable highlighted his chances of emerging the APC governorship candidate.

The other aspirants who contested the primaries were Leke Pitan, former commissioner for health; Tayo Akinde, a former aide to Tinubu. Wahab Tokunbo; Olanrewaju Ope, a former commissioner for rural affairs; Abayomi Sutton and Tobun-Agbesanwa.